walter's a crazy man!

he's running around upstairs, breathless.

thanksgiving turned out okay. the triple rock didn't open until 8:00pm, and i was hungry for more than potatoes. since marya's husband has the kids on holidays [since he has a big family] she, too, was alone. john was alone as well because his dad is dead and his mom lives near canada. and steve's holiday was postponed due to his nephews' illness.

so we all met at hardtimes, which is a place with really good, cheap food, tons of vegan options, and it's open 6am-4am every day no matter what.
great for night owls like myself.
anyhow, i had a falafel sandwich which was good. it was no vegan meatloaf dinner, but it was good.

then we went to see if any other place was open. we decided to stay on the west bank since hardtimes is only a few blocks from the triple rock and due to the large somali population on the west bank, it was more likely for things to be open there.
palmer's was open, and as it turned out they were having a thanksgiving dinner there, but due to veganism and being stuff, i obviously didn't partake.
we sat around the bonfire there for a while outside and then sat around inside for a while until the triple rock opened.

john had to go home, and the three of us were the first patrons to arrive at the t-rock and thus just walked into the entire staff hanging out. which wasn't awkward because marya and i know most of them pretty well.
it ended up filling up after a while, and they were having karaoke which they only do on holidays so that was amusing.
marya asked to go to the cc [i was driving] so we left and went there, where she eventually disappeared. still don't know where she went, but she tends to do that sometimes, so i left and went back to the triple rock where i rounded out my night with steve and jesse.

the day after thanksgiving was fun, too. i saw the falls play at stasiu's and then corpse show creeps at lee's, and then we all went to kristin's.
she live across the street from pizza luce in seward, so we had some good pizza and just hung out there with her boyfriend and some friends.

last night i just hung out with kristy. lane [the one who tried to cheat on her with me] beat her up last week and then fled back home to north dakota, so she's been a bit somber for the past week.
last night she was in a great mood, though, because things are getting better, so i was glad that she was feeling good.

i pulled something in my knee last week so i haven't been able to do much at the gym, but it's feeling a lot better now, so that is good. tomorrow i will go back. i've been doing about 15 miles on the exercise bike and a few miles on the treadmill.

i think i might apply at a few caribou and dunn bros locations. i'm not opposed to working in a coffee shop, at all. so then i can have free coffee [though i only drink decaf now because of my anxiety].

i have community service onthe 13th, which is the day you're supposed to visit, daddy. amanda and mike are coming 11-13.

two good pictures from friday night. i don't usually like pictures where i smile with teeth but these are good.

change.

tonight marya took me to dinner to make me feel better. i was feeling rather cooped up in the house, as i had been in bed for the past 36 hours, and i was starting to feel okay.

so she, her son quinn, and i went to the bulldog for dinner. this was right about the time that the first results from the polls were coming in, and they were showing mccain.

we decided at that point that quit watching for a bit because it was bringing us down. we went to our friend's house and both took a nap, woke up and went to the triple rock to see the end of the election results [we knew at that point that obama was probably going to win because quinn woke us up jumping on the couch say "obama's winning obama's winning!"]

so we sat at the triple rock watching the teevee with no sound-- me sipping my diet coke, her sipping her vodka diet-- and across the screen flashes "obama wins presidency".

the bar erupted into one unanimous cheer. there was hugging and happiness. a bit later we watched mccain's speech [which was very good] and then obama's speech [which was very powerful].

we walked down to palmer's because cadillac kolstad was going to play a few songs, and that is when i saw it: a huge mob of people. at least 500! singing, playing drums, dancing, celebrating.

the feeling was like nothing i'd ever felt before. i've been to protests and rallies, but nothing ever had such a positive, optimistic vibe. somalians, blacks, whites, hmong, hispanics... they were all gathered, cheering, having the passing cars honk.

we sat on palmer's back deck and watched it for a while before i got tired and went home. some of the older people at palmer's said they've never seen such a rally since the 70's.

think what you want about obama, but i've never seen anything bring people together like this. everyones' petty differences were put aside to celebrate the hope for a better country.

so there.